March 18, 2015

Parents usually have their kids’ best interest in mind. They want them to grow healthy, acquire eating habits that promote wellness, and have beautiful, strong teeth.

So how come kids are drinking so much sugar, an ingredient on the top of the list of foods to consume-less-of? Are kids buying it themselves? Are parents unable to resist kids’ appeals for the sweet stuff? Or are parents unaware that sugary drinks are unhealthy?

A group of researchers from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, led by Jennifer Harris set out to understand what parents think about sugary drinks for their kids. The findings appear in Public Health Nutrition.

The researchers collected data from almost 1000 parents. And while it would be expected that parents would provide some sugary drinks as an occasional treat – to be enjoyed yet not promoted as a building block of good nutrition – the study found parents actually thought many of the sugary drinks did promote health. The majority of parents (56 percent) perceived Vitamin Water as somewhat or very healthy. Sunny D (a fruit drink), Gatorade (a sports drink) and Capri Sun were considered healthy by about 40 percent of parents.

While most of the parents in this study (94 percent) thought soda was unhealthy, many believed that vitamin, fruit and sports drinks were healthy, and while ingredients like artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup and caffeine raised red flags, claims for naturalness, antioxidants and vitamin C made parents believe a drink was a good addition to their kids’ diet. A third of the parents said they actually looked for such claims on the label and that it influenced purchasing behavior.

Marketing liquid candy as health

Parents’ confusion isn’t accidental. The study reports that $784 million were spent in 2010 on sugary drinks ads and that adults saw on average 364 TV ads that year, about one a day. Many of these ads are directed at parents, and emphasize nutrition, planting the misperception that vitamins or electrolytes in a drink make it a good choice.

Which is the better choice?

So which should kids have, soda or vitamin drinks? The correct reply is neither. Both offer pretty much nothing kids need and sweeteners that they don’t. They are special occasion indulgences at best. As to sports drinks, they have specific limited usefulness – they are for athletes involved in prolonged, vigorous physical activity – and are not for everyday hydration even when exercising. Fruit drinks, as opposed to 100 percent fruit juice (which has its own issues), may contain some fruit juice, but are mostly sugar or HFCS, color and flavor (natural or artificial), with the occasional added vitamins to suggest health. They, too, should be viewed as soda.

It’s a pity that it’s perfectly legal and so easy to misinform parents with bogus health claims and misleading marketing messages.

March 11, 2015

Sweet potatoes aren’t potatoes, and these are not fries. This is a highly nutritious baked dish that’s really easy to make, delicious, yet as satisfying as French fries. Promise!

Now let’s unpack the sweet potato and the frying issues: I have nothing against potatoes, and I state that sweet potatoes have nothing to do with them just because it’s a fact.

Sweet potatoes are a member of the morning glory family, they come in flesh hues from the popular dark orange to purple and red and pale yellow. They have more vitamin A, more fiber and fewer calories than potatoes, which are related to tomatoes. The more color in your potato (sweet and even regular potatoes, which can come in colors other than white) the higher the level of beneficial colored plant nutrients such as anthocyanins.

Sweet potatoes also have nothing to do with yams, which are the bigger, tropical tuber with rough, bark like skin you’ve probably never tasted and never even seen in an American supermarket. Those are botanically related to lilies and grasses.

Frying, especially deep-frying, is a cooking method that adds a lot of calories to innocent vegetables – while adding great pleasure, some may argue. I fry rarely. A lot of the bad reputation potatoes have gotten is due to our love of fried potatoes and our tendency to encrust or mix them with large amounts of fat, turning them into a calorie bomb.

Sweet potatoes just love coriander, and yes, I do mean it when I recommend 2 tablespoons in this recipe.

Ingredients:

4 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed clean, skin on

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons paprika

Dash of cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

For dipping

½ cup tahini

Juice of one small lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Water as needed

2-3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 °F

Cut unpeeled sweet potatoes lengthwise, then into quarters; depending on potato size cut each quarter into 2-4 long wedges

Toss potatoes with the oil and spices

Spread as one layer on baking sheet covered with parchment paper – you might need two baking sheets

Roast for 20-30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender inside, crisp on the outside and slightly caramelized

Meanwhile, make the tahini dip. Mix tahini with the lemon juice, add water gradually, until the tahini reaches the consistency of a dipping sauce. Add the chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

February 25, 2015

Every five years the US government puts forth new dietary guidelines. The reaction tends to split between disappointment with the lack of change and outrage when recommendations actually do change – how come we were advised something that's now deemed untrue? And if experts can’t be certain and consistent why bother with dietary guidelines at all?

The government’s guidelines are based on nutrition experts’ (The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee or DGAC) recommendations, and their science-based report came out last Thursday. Let’s see if we can find something to get angry about.

What’s new, what’s old?

Here’s the advice in a nutshell:

“The overall body of evidence examined by the 2015 DGAC identifies that a healthy dietary pattern is higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in alcohol (among adults); lower in red and processed meat and low in sugar-sweetened foods and drinks and refined grains."

This does sound familiar, doesn’t it? More plants, less meat, less sugar. Vegetables and fruit are most consistently identified as the food of healthy people.

Regarding sugar fat and salt:

“The DGAC encourages the consumption of healthy dietary patterns that are low in saturated fat, added sugars, and sodium. The goals for the general population are: less than 2,300 mg dietary sodium per day (or age-appropriate Dietary Reference Intake amount), less than 10 percent of total calories from saturated fat per day, and a maximum of 10 percent of total calories from added sugars per day."

The news here is that the committee departs from the vagueness of past reports and puts an upper limit on sugar consumption – 10 percent of total calories – and recommends adding a line for added sugar in the nutrition panel of packaged food to help consumers comply.

Previously, expert advice to lower fat intake was conveniently interpreted as permission to increase carbs – many times refined carbs – to fill the gap. Well, that’s not what the doctor ordered, and to make things clearer (emphasis mine):

“Sodium, saturated fat, and added sugars are not intended to be reduced in isolation, but as a part of a healthy dietary pattern that is balanced, as appropriate, in calories. Rather than focusing purely on reduction, emphasis should also be placed on replacement and shifts in food intake and eating patterns. Sources of saturated fat should be replaced with unsaturated fat, particularly polyunsaturated fatty acids. Similarly, added sugars should be reduced in the diet and not replaced with low-calorie sweeteners, but rather with healthy options, such as water in place of sugar-sweetened beverages.”

One of the things that has changed in this report is that it’s moving away from putting an upper limit for cholesterol, stating that:

“Available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol... Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”

Egg lovers who limited themselves to two eggs a week may be upset. Some say the egg industry might be behind this shift. Others point to the studies cited by the committee; those show that most people don’t respond dramatically to low cholesterol diets, and that these diets don’t improve outcomes in most analysis.

What’s this advice good for?

The advisory committee’s recommendations inform the government’s guidelines, and those affect policies, action and choices. They affect everything from school lunches to SNAP to the food industry, and also the way we personally fill our plate.

We have to eat something, so we need the best, most unbiased evidence to inform what we should eat. Let’s also remember that two-thirds of the US population is overweight or obese, and healthier diets could prevent many of the chronic diseases we’re afflicted with. Yes, we do need help.

That little changes from report to report is quite reassuring. There are many ways to eat healthy, and they seem to all converge around eating more plants, less processed food and moderation.

When pieces of advice do change don’t be upset. Science is never static. Our pursuit of the truth is a journey, and new, many times better data brings us closer to it. Today’s cars are infinitely safer than the ones sold in the 80’s, despite all the recent recalls. The scientific method moves us closer to the answer, but it does take time and further study, and nutrition study is both young and very difficult.

I think it’s wise to have a healthy, enjoyable food pattern. I don’t think you have to listen to the noise and the fine details. Those change, but the essence does remain the same, and change and discovery is what makes things interesting.

February 18, 2015

A few weeks ago, an Alabama man was stopped by a policeman for eating a cheeseburger while driving and cited under the distracted driving law. The charges were later dropped.

The story got remarkable attention, and although I have no idea whether the driver should have gotten a ticket, I’m glad that it brought the issue of distracted driving into discussion.

The other issue that we should think about more is distracted eating. We seem to be eating most of our meals while doing something else. And while eating might take your mind off the road, traffic also takes your mind off your food.

A study in Public Health Nutrition that looked at people’s food-related time use over 30 years revealed that besides the dramatic shift in how much and what Americans eat, there’s also been a big shift in the way we eat.

The study found that we now do almost 50 percent of our eating while concentrating on something else, up from just 20 percent 30 years ago.

Eating is now done while driving, watching TV, walking down a street and working — as we all know, it’s now perfectly acceptible to eat while doing pretty much anything — and food’s available for nibbling and sipping everywhere.

We’re eating most of our calories while distracted. Does preoccupied eating explain overconsumption and the upward trend in our collective weight? I think so, at least in part. Mindful eating is an important technique that helps people modify their food intake and we should give some thought to how we eat, and perhaps try to multitask a little less during the time we have food in our mouths. Food that’s eaten at a table, slowly, attentively, is more effective at filling you up. Food that’s celebrated is more satiating.

Mind you, I’m as guilty as anyone of eating lunch at my computer. But I do have some rules that I’ve been able to stick to: We eat a family dinner every day, unrushed, no electronic distractions allowed, and I limit eating-while-distracted to low caloric density, highly nutritious foods, such as veggies and fruit.

A good start would be eliminating eating while doing these two things: watching TV (huge amounts of calories can be consumed mindlessly in front of a screen) and obviously driving. Eating slows your reaction time to dangers on the road. Driving slows your reaction time to food.

February 04, 2015

It doesn’t take much to persuade me to eat chocolate. Chocolate is my favorite treat, and to me, all worthwhile desserts are nothing more than chocolate delivery systems.

So I welcome chocolate in starring roles in eat-for-your-health studies.

Last fall, a neat study published in Nature Neuroscience, showed that healthy 50 to 69 year-olds who drank a mixture rich in cocoa’s flavonols for three months improved their cognitive function. The 37 people in the study also underwent functional MRI imaging after ingesting the cocoa drink, that found greater activity in the area of the brain called the dentate gyrus, an area associated with memory.

In a new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition researchers gave 90 elderly people who don’t have cognitive impairment one of 3 cocoa drinks: high, medium or low in flavonol. Cognitive function was tested at the beginning and after 8 weeks of daily drinks. The groups that drank the intermediate and high flavonol drinks showed improved cognitive performance and improvement in some mental tasks. On top of that, blood pressure and insulin resistance also improved in the high cocoa flavonol group.

These same researchers conducted a similar study with older people that already suffered mild cognitive impairment. In that study too, those of the 90 people that were randomly assigned to drink the intermediate and high cocoa flavonol drinks showed improved verbal fluency and higher speed of mental processing than those on the low flavonol drink.

Chocolate for your brain?

These studies provide further proof that food can affect your health and well-being, even your intellect.

But does it prove that eating chocolate strengthens your brain?

Getting the amount of flavonols that were useful in the study group from chocolate would involve eating so much chocolate that whatever protection you’d gain from these beneficial molecules, you’d lose from the harms associated with sugar and calorie overload. The people in the high cocoa group consumed the equivalent of what’s in 6 oz. of dark chocolate (~900 calories), and forget about milk chocolate, – it has much less flavonols – you’d need 3 pounds (thousands of calories) a day.

Reasonable consumption of chocolate would place you in the low flavonol arm of the experiment, at best.

If you’re wondering why the sudden scientific interest in chocolate, note that the studies cited above were partially funded by Mars (the chocolate maker). That’s not to say that the results are anything but accurate and independent of the funding source.

But maybe when you study a plant food and fund that research, you’ll find many positive effects and headlines will announce it as a new cure. It’s very likely that investing in research on any traditional plant food would have led to equally encouraging results. After all, there are flavonols similar to the one in cocoa in tea, onions, kale, grapes and apples. That's why we should eat our plants. And if you want to help protect your brain from aging the best piece of advice remains the same: exercise regularly!